


Keeping my Heart in my Pocket

by wepreachelectric



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn, coffee shop AU, keith has a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 00:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10348641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wepreachelectric/pseuds/wepreachelectric
Summary: They make eye contact for a moment. Recognition flashes in the guy’s eyes and he hurriedly looks back down at his book, the same one from yesterday, with a scowl.coffee shop au where things start off on the wrong foot but inevitably get better





	

**Author's Note:**

> woo! This took me way too long than it should have... we'll not even talk about when i actually started this.  
> anyways this was fun to write i'm really happy with it :')
> 
> I'd actually started this in the summer not too long after vld first came out and I finished watching it and then I never actually finished it oh well
> 
> ((disclaimer that this takes place over a few months, it says in some parts but, i didn't want to cause any confusion or anything!!))

Lance was stuck in a serious bout of writer's’ block. He had been since about July.

Ironic, he thought, seeing as he was an English major. But while he’d been able to crank out his assignments on time and do well enough on them, he’d not yet written anything since the summer that he’d actually been able to sit and read over for more than thirty seconds at a time.

He was probably screwed.

He couldn’t get inspiration from anywhere. He’d read through his old notebooks stuffed to the gills with old plot notes and character designs and scrolled through every single unfinished draft in the depths of his computer and still couldn’t find anything worth his time to finish, or even start to write.

Lance had even gone as far as checking out a few writing help books from the campus library, and left them feeling more hopeless than before he even considered looking for written help.

He’d even started to tick off Hunk with his endless moping, and he was the most easygoing guy he knew.

That was how Lance stumbled upon some inspiration he’d finally needed. 

It was all Hunk’s idea. He’d suggested that Lance head down to the coffee shop to work after he’d spent three hours pulling Hunk away from his own work to complain and ask if he had any groundbreaking plots he was dying to see elaborated. 

_ “Lance, buddy,” Lance lifted his head up mere inches off his bed at the sound of Hunk’s voice. Hunk was sitting at his desk, working, and had spun around in his chair to stare pointedly at Lance, “you’ve got to give this a break, or at least do this somewhere else. I’ll never get through these notes with you here whining.” _

When Lance had started complaining again, he was pushed out the door, laptop in his arms, and a handful of dollar bills stuffed in his coat pocket.

He sulks outside the door for  a moment, before he starts banging wildly on it, trying to get Hunk to let him back inside.

In response, loud Katy Perry starts blasting through the door. Lance huffed, staring down at his feet. He wasn’t wearing shoes. He pounds his fist on the door one last time and the music dies down for a moment. “It would be nice to have some shoes, you know,” he yells.

The door opens an inch and Lance scrambles to try and wedge his hand in it to get back inside but instead, a pair of hot pink flip-flops are shoved through before he could even try, and the door is slammed shut again.

Lance kicks on the flip-flops and starts down the hall. They weren’t even his. In fact, Lance couldn’t even remember whose they really were. The shoes were too small and left his toes curling over the front edge of them.

Pidge probably left them here, he thinks.

Lance continues to scuff down the hallway, Hunk’s music still audible from the other end. Some people had started to peek around their doors at the sorry sight of him, too small shoes and worn, lion pajama pants. 

He didn’t even know where to go after he left the dorm, but he kept walking anyways. Eventually, he’d managed to find himself standing outside one of his and Hunk’s favorite places, a little coffee shop just outside of campus. They came here on an almost daily basis, so much to the point that as he walked in, the barista was already working on his order. 

Something was different in here today. The studio lights near the back of the shop, that were usually off, were on now and aimed right at a makeshift stage made out of shipping pallets.

The barista sets a mug down on the counter, practically overflowing with whipped cream. Lance looks up, quirking an eyebrow at her. She squints, thinking, before jumping up. “Oh yeah! Sorry Lance, I almost forgot,” she turns and grabs a bottle from behind her and doodles a smiling face on the top of his drink with caramel syrup. 

Lance slaps a five on the counter and takes his drink. “Thanks Shay,” he smirks, “It’s almost as sweet as you,”

Shay turns around, rolling her eyes, “Lance,” she says,

“I was already about to text Hunk that you said hi,”

“Good,” she flashes him a smile before turning around to help another customer.

“Yeah, sure,” he sighs, waving her off. He takes a sip of his drink and leans against the counter. His laptop is balancing precariously on the edge next to him but he figures it’s fine as long as it’s in his peripheral vision. “What’s with the stage back there?” he asks Shay. The whipped cream muffles his voice.

Shay looks up from the cup of green tea she’s currently pouring for an elderly woman. “Oh, that’s for the poetry thing we’re holding in a bit.” She hands the woman her tea and Lance hears the  _ ching _ of the register as she drops the change inside. She glances back at the door, and satisfied that no one’s going to be walking in soon, she leans against the counter next to Lance, chin in hand. “Are you going to be reading anything today?” Shay asks. 

“My writer’s block has been a bitch for months,” Lance sighs, rolling his eyes at her, “and you know this.”

Shay stands up, laughing, “Hey, I can dream you know. You never did read anything of yours to me, like you promised.” She punctuates the last part by poking every word into his shoulder lightly. “I’ll be here waiting!” she calls over her shoulder as Lance finally gets up and moves to a table.

***

Lance has been coming to this coffee shop almost religiously, nearly every single day for over a year, and some days more than once. Every single day for over a year he came here, coffee in hand, and sat at the small, round table in the corner just past the window. It was just big enough for the two wire-backed chairs that were seated there, but it was small enough to be cozy when he and Hunk came here to sit together. He had the mosaic tile design memorized in the pads of his fingers. He traced the pattern absentmindedly as he sat there. Sitting there, he never got sun in his eyes, as he usually did when he sat anywhere else, and it was situated far enough from Shay’s speakers that he could block out the music she seemed to have an endless supply of. Behind it, was a shelf of plants, and Hunk and he had even started to give some of them nicknames as they came.

The fern’s name was Bob.

However, today someone new was sitting there. Every single day for over a year, every single time Lance came to the coffee shop, no one sat in his spot ever. It’s some guy, he’s reading an old, dog eared paperback which is propped up against a half-drunk mug of tea. He’s wearing some sort of  _ stupid _ cropped jacket, and has his black hair pulled up in a ponytail. Lance thinks about going up and getting in the guy’s face and telling Mr. Table Stealer, a nickname Lance just brilliantly gave him, to go move, but then remembers his own pathetic ensemble of too small flip flops, lion pajama pants, and embarrassing worn t-shirt. 

Lance definitely can’t go up and try and intimidate someone wearing  a shirt like this. Hunk had given him the shirt for Christmas as a joke a few years back. It’s a size too big and hangs weird off his lanky frame. Worst of all, across the chest, in big, bold letters are the words “I met my boyfriend on ChristianMingle.com”. He can’t do this today.

Instead, Lance decides to sit at the table right next to him. He sets his coffee down a little too harshly, and all but throws himself down in the chair. 

Mr. Table Stealer turns his page.

Lance flings his laptop open, punching his passcode in as hard as he can and angrily opens Microsoft Word.

Mr. Table Stealer takes a long sip of his tea without even looking up from his book.

A teenage girl takes the stage in the back of the shop, nervous hands rustling her piece of loose-leaf. She pushes a nonexistent out of place strand of hair behind her ear and introduces herself as Hayley, and that she’ll be the first one to go today. 

Mr. Table Stealer folds down the corner of his page and turns, giving his full attention to the girl and her poem.

Lance lets out an exasperated breath through his nose and starts pecking at his keyboard, inspiration finally sparking in him. 

He zones out for a moment, aware only of  the clacking of the keys and of the people moving around him. Eventually, he comes to and he’s got a finished acrostic poem sitting in front of him and the table stealing guys is gone. 

There’s a scribbled note wedged between his wrist and his computer. 

_ “Hey, if you really wanted that table you could have just said something. -- The table stealing jackass <3” _

Lance shoves the paper in his pocket and considers banging his head against the edge of the table until he dies, but is interrupted by a familiar body taking the seat opposite him.

“You know I was genuinely worried when I opened the door after ten minutes and you weren’t still sitting out in the hallway.”

Of course it’s Hunk.

Lance drops his head to the tabletop. “I want to kill myself, man.” 

Hunk sighs, reaching across the table and taking Lance’s coffee. He takes a sip and grimaces. “This is disgusting,” he says, taking another sip, “It’s gone cold, I don’t know how you could stand to drink this.” He knocks down the rest of the drink and slams the cup down on the table. “There’s got to be at least a cup of sugar in this, it’s not even coffee.”

Lance shrugs, still not lifting his head from the table. “I dunno man,” he mumbles, “that’s just how I like it.” He rolls his head over to the side and watches Hunk stand up, taking his coffee with him. “Where are you going?”

Hunk answers without looking back, “To get another one,”  
“I thought you hated my coffee,”

“Yeah, I do. But it looks like you could use another. What happened while I was gone?”

Lance plants his face back onto the tabletop, groaning. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He finally sits up when Hunk comes back with two drinks and sets them on the table. One’s obviously Lance’s, with whipped cream and caramel drizzle nearly overflowing over the edge of the mug. The other, Hunk’s, has a heart drawn in the milk foam.

Lance reaches across the table and picks up his coffee. While he’s distracted, Hunk dives across him and grabs his laptop, flinging it open. Lance sets his drink down again and scrambles to wrench the computer from Hunk’s hands, but he’s already put in his password and is barely able to hold back his laughter. 

He closes the laptop again and sets it down next to Lance. “Wow man, way to be a real asshole there,” Hunk barely manages to wheeze out. “I didn’t even know there were so many different ways to call someone a jackass.”

Lance buries his head in his arms again, but Hunk isn’t done talking. “What are you going to do if you see this guy again?” And then he’s losing it again. Lance doesn’t even need to look up again to know Hunk has his head in one hand and the other clutching his heart. He’s always been like this. He tries to say something, but interrupts himself with another bout of laughter, loud and ringing throughout the cafe. In his mind’s eye, Lance can see Shay smiling to herself behind the counter; he knows that there’s people looking up from their own business here, grinning ever so slightly. 

Hunk’s like a cold draft. Without realizing, he manages to reach out and touch everyone in a room. Lance, himself, smiles to himself behind his arms.

“Bro,” Hunk says once he’s finally able to get more than three words out without cracking down into a fit of laughter again, “If you see this guy again, he’s gonna fucking  _ deck  _ you.”

Lance groans. He feels like garbage. “Yeah,” he manages, “thanks.”

***

“You Stole my Favorite Table -- By: Lance Mcclain”

_ Jerk who stole my table _ __  
_ Asshole who stole my favorite table _ __  
_ Clod who stole my table _ __  
_ Knucklehead who stole my table _ __  
_ Ass _ __  
_ Shit man, that’s my table _ _  
_ __ Stop

***

When Lance goes to the cafe again the next day, his table is still occupied by the same guy. He’s still sporting the same stupid ponytail and a plain, black t-shirt. There’s a pocket on the front of it, with a four-leaf clover pinned to it with a paperclip. He looks up from his book as Lance opens the door. The bells above the doorframe jingle.

They make eye contact for a moment. Recognition flashes in the guy’s eyes and he hurriedly looks back down at his book, the same one from yesterday, with a scowl. 

Lance sighs as he orders his usual. 

Shay draws a smiley face on top in caramel.

Lance tucks his notebook under his arm as he grabs his mug and moves to go find a table to sit at. 

Some unholy god must have decided to take matters into their own hands because somehow Lance finds himself at his usual table. The guy looks up. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asks.

Lance shrugs. He’s frowning at his feet like it’s their fault this is happening and in part, it is. They stay like that for a moment, Lance frowning at his feet and the guy at Lance, before he speaks up again. “Are you going to sit down or are you going to stay standing there like an idiot?” 

Lance sits down.

“I didn’t mean across from me,” the guy says. Then, as he sees Lance isn’t making any effort to move, he introduces himself. “I’m Keith,” he says, looking back down at his book and taking a sip of tea. It doesn’t even have milk or sugar in it. Lance laughs inwardly, it’s fitting, he supposes; only true heathens take their drinks without adding anything.

He looks up again as Lance remains silent and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah, right,” Lance mumbles, “I’m Lance.”

Keith nods then, and turns his page. Lance notices the cover:  _ Encounters with Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Manbirds, Gargoyles & Other Winged Beasts. _

Lance shrugs to himself and opens his notebook to an empty page. It’s an old one he’s kept since he was about fifteen and really had tried to start writing. The notebook’s cover is made out of worn, blue leather and there’s a string sewn to the front to wrap around and tie it shut. The pages inside are thick card, almost, and crammed to the edges with plot ideas and scattered verses. He’s jotted down odd dreams and checklists, it’s his most prized possession.

He takes a sip of his coffee and glances around the shop, willing inspiration to flow into him. 

His gaze settles on Keith, opposite him. It’s about eleven in the morning, and the sun’s just short of being overhead. It casts a golden light in his hair, making it seem as if the ends of it are glowing. 

Lance clicks his pen open and starts scribbling on the paper.

After a few lines, he looks up and Keith’s still totally engrossed in his book. He flips another page. Lance takes another sip of his coffee and rereads over what he’s got so far and, he’s not mad at it.

He’d braced himself to hate what he’d just written. He was so used to writing single lines and scraping whole ideas off of bad starts or undeveloped concepts. What he has is, soft. It’s different than what he was so used to doing before; fantasy and adventure with harsh, bold characters and jumpy plots. This is a nice contrast he decides. He’s not mad at it.

When he looks back up again, Keith’s gone. Lance looks around: out the window, towards the back of the store, at the counter, and he’s gone. 

He goes to close his notebook and spots something different in the corner of the page. The handwriting is familiar. It’s Keith’s. 

Who else’s could it be.

_ Hey, nice to see you’re finally writing something nice about me. See you tomorrow? _

He’s left his number at the end and Lance wastes practically no time adding it into his contact list on his phone before downing the rest of his drink and heading out.

***

The next day, Keith’s there at the same table again. He’s reading a different book, but Lance can’t tell what it is because the cover’s been ripped off. Keith looks up from his seat and smiles. “Hey, stranger, fancy seeing you here today.”

Lance smirks as he takes his seat across him, “I come here every day regardless of you being here or not.”

Keith rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his tea. He turns his attention towards Lance’s drink. Today Shay drew a caricature of Lance himself on top. “What even is that?” he asks around his own drink.

“Well,” says Lance, “It started out as a regular coffee with five pumps of caramel syrup but then,” he pauses taking another sip, “Then I realized how many other things that I could add in so now it’s evolved to five pumps caramel, one vanilla, three espresso shots, almond milk, a drizzle of chocolate syrup, three shakes cinnamon, chocolate shavings, whipped cream, and more caramel on top.”

Keith stares at him, mouth slightly agape. 

Lance stares back, squinting at him, “What?”

“That’s not even really coffee anymore.”

“It is too! You can still taste some of it, that’s what the espresso shots are for. Besides, what do you even get when you come here?”

Keith shrugs. “I just get a mug of black tea.”

“You don’t put anything in it?”

“Why would I?”

“It’s boring!”

“But I like it,”

“To each his own, I guess,” Lance finally says. He lifts up his mug and clinks it against Keiths. “To each his own.”

***

The fourth day, Lance arrives at the shop before Keith. He sets his stuff down at their table and then goes up to order his drink. Shay’s starts to ring him up when he stops her, “Uh, can I get a plain black tea too?”

Shay smiles up at him, “Is this for--”

“Shut up,”

She chuckles and then turns around to grab the tea. “Hey, don’t worry about these, Lance, they’re on the house.”

Lance has just set down the drinks and taken a seat when Keith walks in. As he sees Lance he breaks into a stupid grin and waves over at him. Lance shakes his head.

“So,” Keith says, sliding into the seat opposite Lance, “You paid for everything today, does that make this a coffee date?”

Lance laughs, “What? Can’t I just do one nice thing?”

Keith takes a sip and raises his eyebrows mockingly at Lance, “No, actually, you’re not allowed to.”

Lance scoffs and then they’re both silent for a moment. 

It’s not awkward. Shay’s just turned on the music, and today it’s a bit of 80’s pop and Lance can just barely make out the opening lines of “Stacy’s Mom”. He starts humming the song to himself and Keith makes a deal out of pointing it out to him. “You’re humming the song.”

“Yeah,” says Lance, “I like it,”

“Why?” Lance pauses for a moment, thinking. He’s thinking of an actual answer because Keith seemed genuinely interested. He ends up shrugging his response.

“I don’t know, I just do,”

“Come on,” Keith prods, leaning forward on his elbows, “You’ve got to have a reason,”

Lance shrugs again and pulls his jacket he’s wearing a bit tighter around himself, “I really don’t,”

Then, Keith’s grinning again like he was earlier, “You’ll find a reason,”

The door to the cafe opens and an all too familiar voice rings out calling an order over to Shay and then turning attention to Lance. “Hey!” It’s Pidge. “Lance! Who’s that with you?”

He freezes. He doesn’t know why, but suddenly he’s frozen in place and he and Pidge are making direct eye contact. She raises her eyebrows, smirks,  grabs her coffee and leaves. 

Lance doesn’t move to turn back to Keith until he feels something warm touch his hand. He looks down and there it is. Keith’s holding his hand. He runs his thumb over his knuckles once, soothingly. “What?” Keith says, defensive, “You looked scared when that kid walked in.”

“It’s fine,” Lance assures. He almost pulls his hand away. He looks up just as the song ends. As he turns his attention back down to the table, Keith’s looking out the window and smiling.

***

“You’ve been spending more time than usual at the coffee shop these past few weeks,” Hunk comments one day. The two of them are in their dorm working on homework.

Before Hunk’s even able to finish his sentence, Pidge flings open the door. “What’s up everybody,” she calls, “I hate myself!”

Hunk swings around calmly in his chair, “I told you not to take college algebra with AP calc.”

“But it looks so good on my transcript,” she complains, flopping down on her beanbag in the corner of the room. “I’ve got so much math work right now I’d rather have a heart to heart with Lance about his coffee shop boyfriend before doing it.” She kicks off a pair of neon yellow flip flops, sending them flying across the room. They land next to a similar pair of pink ones.

“Hey, Pidge,” Lance calls back, pointedly ignoring her comment, “why don’t you actually try taking your shoes home one day,”

Pidge settles further in her seat. “I’ll stop leaving shoes here when the Old Navy stops having ten for ten sales. I’ve got eighty more pairs at home, I can spare a few.”

Lance sighs, turning his head so he can actually look at Hunk from where he’s sprawled on his bed, “And I have not been spending too much time there, we go like six times a week.”

Hunk spins back around so he can start working again, “Lance you’ve already been there twice today.” Lance frowns up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah!” Pidge chimes in, “We were there together earlier to see how many espresso shots I could take before I started shaking.”

Hunk whips around to yell at the two of them, “Why would you do that?”

Pidge shrugs, “Why not? I have two tests tomorrow and no desire to do anything for them. I needed something to do.”

Hunk sighs and drops his head into his hands, “I can’t believe the two of you,”

“Pidge that was yesterday”

“Oh,” Pidge says, scratching behind her neck, “Well it doesn’t matter anyways, I saw you there today.”

Lance shrugs, “Yeah, I saw you there too,”

Pidge is silent for a moment, and then she breaks into an evil grin, “I saw your coffee boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Hunk pipes in, excited, “Did you buy him coffee like you said you were going to?”

“He doesn’t even like coffee.”

Hunk awes, “That’s cute, you even know what he likes to drink,”

“He’s not my boyfriend”

“It looked like you were on a date, dude,” Pidge adds.

Lance groans and Hunk shuts Pidge up with a “Don’t you have some work you need to be doing?”

Now Pidge is groaning, she sinks further into the beanbag. “It’s not that I don’t understand it,” she says, flinging her arm over her eyes dramatically, “Because I do, I just don’t want to actually do it.”

Lance rolls his eyes at Pidge and then hauls himself up and off the bed. He stretches, reaching towards the ceiling. “I’m going out.” he announces. 

“This’ll be the third time today, what’s up with you?” Hunk says. He doesn’t look up from his desk. 

Lance opens the door, and calls over his shoulder, “Nothing’s wrong, I’ve just found inspiration.” He grabs his notebook off the shelf by the door before leaving again.

He just barely hears Pidge through the door, “That’s just Lance-talk for ‘I’ve met someone’, we’re about to become third and fourth wheels, man,”

Hunk groans.

***

Lance makes it to the end the hallway when he realizes that he has no idea where he wants to go. 

He decides to go outside. 

With no set destination in mind, Lance lets himself wander. He shoves his hands in his pockets and pulls his jacket a bit tighter around himself to block out the breeze. It’s nice outside, so the walk isn’t unenjoyable. 

Eventually he finds himself in a bookstore, and without thinking twice, Lance makes his way over to the science fiction section. He stares at the shelves for a moment, running his finger over the spines and waiting for something to jump out at him. Nothing does. 

It’s not surprising however, Lance doesn’t believe in any sort of supernatural bullshit. Aliens? Fake. Ghosts? Fog and breezes. Loch Ness Monster? A really big stick. 

He settles, in the end, on a paperback so short it’s basically a glorified pamphlet on the Men in Black. He thinks he saw a movie about it once.

He leaves the store with his book in a paper bag and a fierce newfound determination to learn as much as he can about mysterious men in suits.

***

When he gets back to the dorm, Pidge is passed out on her bean bag while Hunk’s still at his desk, working furiously on some sort of contraption. He doesn’t turn around when Lance walks in through the door. He’s about to say something about it, when he sees the earbuds in his ears. Lance flops down on his bed and opens his book. 

He gets lost in it for almost an hour and jumps when Hunk finally speaks up. “When did you get back?” he asks.

Lance puts his hand over his racing heart, after being startled and checks the clock, “I don’t know, maybe an hour ago?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You looked busy.” Lance shrugs. “By the way, what are you working on now?”

Hunk immediately perks up, picking up his finished project. It’s small, and looks like a toy car. There’s a tiny camera and claw attached to the front. “It’s supposed to find pairs of matching socks on the floor,” he explains, “So, if show it one sock, it’ll drive around on the floor and look for the matching pair, since someone,” he says, with a pointed look at Lance, “never actually picks his nasty socks up anywhere.”

“What can I say,” Lance says, tossing his book to the side, “I don’t have time in my busy life to keep track of every pair of socks I own.”

Hunk snorts, placing his project back on the desk, “Yeah, busy trying to impress the 

coffee shop guy,”

“Hey!” Lance yells, tossing a pillow across the room at his friend. Huck catches it with one hand, “I’ll have you know he’s totally impressed with my good looks and charm!”

Hunk laughs again, “I bet he is.”

***  
Keith is already at their table when Lance goes to the coffee shop the next day. His hair is still pulled back and today he’s wearing an X-Files “I want to believe” shirt. And, he’s reading Lance’s Men in Black book. 

Lance orders his coffee and then slides in across from Keith, pulling his own copy of the book out of the inner pocket of his jacket where he usually keeps his notebook. “Looks like we have the same taste in books,” 

“I didn’t know you were into conspiracies,” Keith says, folding down the corner of his page and looking up at Lance.

“Yeah, I mean, they’re okay, I guess,” Lance fumbles,

Keith smirks. It’s like he can see right through Lance sometimes. “Oh my god!” he exclaims, “You bought this book just to try and impress me!” 

“No I didn’t!”

“Then why did you buy it then?” He’s leaning on his elbows across the table, trying to get in Lance’s face.

“I thought it looked cool?”

“That’s bullshit!” Keith laughs, leaning back in his chair. He takes a sip of his tea. “You told me the other day that you didn’t believe in any of that ‘supernatural crap’ when I sent you the link to that one haunted hotel video the other day,”

Lance shrugs, “I guess I had an epiphany?”

Keith laughs then, with an ear to ear grin, his voice reaching out to every corner of the cafe, and Lance pretends that he wasn’t staring the entire time, committing the sound to memory.

***

A few weeks later, Keith seems nervous as they walk out of the cafe together, but Lance doesn’t think anything about it until they’re outside and suddenly, someone’s holding his hand. He looks up at Keith, who’s staring intently down at his shoes. “Hey, are you doing anything later today?” he asks the sidewalk.

“Not that I know of, I was just planning on watching Hunk test-drive his sock robot for the hundredth time,”

“Oh,” 

“Why do you want to know?” Lance knows exactly why he wants to know.

“Would you want to maybe come over to my place later? It’s just a few blocks up the street from here and--”

Lance cuts Keith off, “Sure, let’s go,” he pulls Keith down the street with him a couple steps when Keith tugs back, hard, stopping Lance in his tracks.

“Uh, my place is the other way,”

Lance spins around, going up the street the other way just as purposely as before. Keith jogs a few steps until he’s walking next to him and squeezes his hand and swings their arms.  

They walk in comfortable silence. Lance is barely paying attention to what's going on and almost misses Keith’s building. He keeps walking as Keith stops, and he feels his arm nearly jump out of his socket as Keith tugs him in the opposite direction into the building.

“The elevators broken, sorry,” Keith mumbles as they stand in the lobby.

“Oh,” Lance says, “I’m sure it’s not that far,”

“I live on the 5th floor.”

Lance feels his eyes widen. He shakes his head, bringing forth a smile. “That’s fine! I’ll get in my steps for the day.”

Keith cocks his head a bit, like he’s trying to see something behind Lance, and shrugs before turning and climbing the stairs like they’re nothing. Lance supposes after doing it enough they probably actually start to feel like nothing.

He trudges behind Keith by at least ten whole steps the whole way; the gap growing to fifteen when he stops to make sure his legs are still connected to the rest of his body somewhere around floor three and a half.

By the time they finally  _ finally _ make it to Keith’s floor, Lance has all but decided that the only way he’s going to get back to the first floor when he leaves is by sliding down on his ass.

Keith apologizes as he unlocks the door, and Lance can swear he hears a faint crying from the other side. “Sorry it’s so high up, I’ve gotten used to it now though,”

“It’s fine,” Lance assures, “It wasn’t that bad.” His hamstrings seemed to protest otherwise.

Keith opens the door and something large and red, and  _ loud _ leaps up into his arms the second the door cracks open. It’s a cat. “Red!” Keith exclaims, hoisting the orange cat up higher in his arms until he’s carrying her like a baby. “It’s only been a few hours, girl.” He runs his fingers through her long fur and she climbs up onto his shoulders. Keith chuckles to himself. “Red, say hello to Lance,”

Lance reaches out to pet her, but is met with the meanest stare he’s ever seen from a cat. He settles for a verbal greeting instead. “Hello, Red.”

Red hisses at him.

Keith reaches back and scratches her ear and she leans into his hand while still staring dead into Lance’s eyes. “Look at you, making new friends!”

Keith’s apartment is plain, but full of stuff. 

Lance leaves his shoes by the door and slowly follows Keith further inside, stopping to look at everything. His walls are covered in notes for everything, assignments to finish, groceries to pick up, important phone numbers, push-pinned in all over. He’s got prints, framed, of the weirdest things. Lance spots a bigfoot one and at least three for extraterrestrial creatures.

And then there’s the living room. Keith’s got a large bookshelf, reaching up to the ceiling, next to his sliding glass door to a small balcony. It’s crammed full with books. They’re all and look like they’ll fall apart if anyone were to touch one. There’s a pile next to the couch, and two more behind it. There’s a stack on the kitchen counter next to the fridge too. 

“So,” Lance says finally, “It looks like you like to read.”

Keith flops down onto the couch, an old, black suede thing, and Red hops up onto the back of it. The back of the couch is a pale tan with cat hair. “Yeah, I guess,” 

Lance takes off his jacket, and drapes it over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen island before joining Keith on the couch. Red hops from the couch, to the counter in one graceful jump and immediately starts poking at the fabric with her nose.

Keith turns to face Lance, pulling his legs up onto the couch and sitting cross-legged. “So,” he begins, looking directly into Lance’s face, “What do you want to do?”

Lance shrugs, “It’s your place,”

Keith groans, leaning back onto the armrest. “God, I can’t believe we’re doing this,”

“What?”

“Being indecisive over what to do like a bunch of twelve year olds,”

“We could watch a movie?”

“I have Pawn Stars.”

“What?”

Keith shrugs, “It’s a good show,”

“Do we have anything else to watch?”

“I have all twelve seasons on DVD.”

“Why do you have all twelve seasons?”

“It’s a good show.” Keith shrugs again.

By the end of episode three, both boys are sprawled out on the couch, armrests being used as pillows and legs intertwined. 

By the end of episode 7, Lance falls asleep.

He wakes up somewhere around episode 9. When he comes to, Keith’s moved. He’s sitting in the same spot, but with his knees pulled up in front of him. He’s watching Lance with a soft expression. “You talk when you sleep.” 

“Oh,” Lance stretches his arms, “I didn’t know.”

***

Lance is two blocks away from Keith’s place when he gets a text.

_Keith:_ _Hey, you left a notebook at my place. I think Red knocked it out of your jacket._

_ Lance: Really? _

Lance pats his inner pocket, where he usually keeps his notebook. It’s empty. 

_ Lance: Fuck. Yeah I did. I’ll get it tomorrow? _

_ Keith: I’ve got class in the morning but if you stop by anytime in the afternoon I’ll be here. _

_ Lance: Sweet _

_ *** _

Lance has no idea how the hell he made it up five flights of stairs with a drink in each hand.

When he gets to Keith’s door, he has no idea how the hell he’s going to knock. 

He decides on kicking the door. 

Red yowls from the other side and Lance takes a defensive step back just as Keith opens the door. “Hey,” he’s smiling. “I’ve got it in here,” Keith walks inside, leaving the door open, and Lance follows him. 

Keith picks Lance’s blue notebook up off the counter. Lance reaches forward for it, but Keith just hugs it into his chest. “Did you mean everything you said inside?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when I found it, it had fallen open, and I read what was there, and then a lot of everything else.” He hands Lance the notebook, “You’re good at this, I think you’ll go far with it.”

Lance thumbs through the pages and puts the notebook back in its respective pocket in his jacket. Finally, looking up at Keith, he says “Yeah,”

“Oh,” Keith takes a step forward, getting up in Lance’s personal space. “Is it okay if?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, and it sounds too loud in the moment but then Keith’s leaning in and leaving the world’s softest, quickest kiss on just the corner of Lance’s mouth. 

Lance makes a face. “What?” Keith asks, he looks only mildly annoyed. Lance rolls his eyes, and grabs the collar of Keith’s flannel in his fists and pulls him in again.

***

There’s four of them in the dorm this time.

“So let me get this straight,” Pidge says, waving a bright purple flip-flop at Lance, who's lying on his bed with his head in Keith’s lap. “You guys met when Lance was being an asshole and wrote a passive-aggressive poem about it?”

“It was really more aggressive than anything,” laughs Keith. 

“Hey! No it wasn’t,” Lance interjects. Keith flicks his nose. Pidge throws her flip-flop at him for good measure too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> You can always reach me at my twitter [@coolerpatrol](http://www.twitter.com/coolerpatrol) or tumblr [@voltronjpeg](http://www.voltronjpeg.tumblr.com)
> 
> as always, feedback is much much appreciated, it helps my future works!!  
> <3 Abby


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